The Dark Sister

Resumen del libro

Goldstein (The Mind-Body Problem; The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind) has cleverly constructed a highly imaginative tale that commands close analysis. Hedda, a grotesque, tormented author of angry feminist novels, has exiled herself to a gloomy New England house, where her grim solitude is interrupted only by phone calls from her silly but dangerous sister, Stella. Hedda is writing a Victorian novel, Henry Jamesian style, about Henry's brother William, the 19th century psychologist.

In the work, William is sent to study two sisters - one a brilliant recluse, the other possibly murderous - with pasts as murky as Hedda's. Characters are mirrored, parallel plots overlap and several dark sisters - gifted with imaginative intellects but viewed as morbidly deviant - are doomed to destruction. Although this book may at times seem an unstructured melange of repeated themes, images and phrases inspired by 19th-century literature, psychology, metaphysics and feminist history, its disjointedness is purposeful and provocative.

Readers who persevere will be rewarded by this witty, literary tour de force.

Biografía del autor

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein recibió una beca de la Fundación MacArthur, fue designada Humanista del año y Heroína del libre pensamiento, y es miembro de la Academia Estadounidense de Artes y Ciencias. Sus libros premiados incluyen las novelas 'El problema mente-cuerpo' o '36 argumentos para la existencia de Dios' y ensayos sobre Kurt Gödel y Baruch Spinoza.